The physician nodded.
"I'd like fur ye tu dhrop in agin, thin," continued the sergeant slowly, "if ye have toime? There's a little matther I wud like tu dishcuss wid yu'—'tis 'bout that same man."
Doctor Cox glanced sharply at the speaker's earnest, sombre face. A certain sinister earnestness underlay the simple words, and it startled him.
"Very good, Sergeant!" he agreed, "I'll call in on my way back. Well! good-by, all of you, for the time being!"
They followed him outside and watched the rig depart on its journey westward. It was Redmond who broke the long silence.
"Well, sacred Billy! What do you know about that?" he ejaculated tensely.
And the trio turned and looked upon each other strangely, their faces registering mutual wonderment and conviction.
"Sleep?" murmured Yorke, "No, by gum! . . . no more could Macbeth, with King Duncan and Banquo on his chest o' nights! . . . Well, that settles it!"
But Slavin made a gesture of dissent. "As you were, bhoys!" was his sober mandate. "Sleeplishness's no actual proof . . . but it's a pointer. Th' iron's getthin' warrm—eyah! d——d warrm! . . . but we cannot shtrike yet."